Face up to the Truth about Freedom of Movement.

Those of you who voted Leave because of immigration I have news for you.  Everything we have been saying to you for more than 2 years about immigration is correct.  Ask the Migration Advisory Committee who have brought some inconvenient facts out into the open.  They were assigned the job of designing an immigration system outside EU membership.  In so doing they made a thorough examination of the impact of EU immigration in the areas of concern.  I have laid those out below point by point in a handy table for you to cut out and keep.   

In short, if you saw the Breaking Point Poster revealed by the leave campaign and Nigel Farage and when its clear and unsavoury message sat in your head, burning the fire of resentment and righteousness inside you, making you look at the foreigners around you with new suspicion or as a group of people who are taking the proverbial, well I am sorry to tell you once again the poster was wrong.  You are still wrong if you believe that immigration or FOM has a single thing to do with any of the things that made you unhappy.  You are still wrong if you think throwing away your (and everybody else’s) EU citizenship and your rights to FOM will make any of these things better.   

If you are fed up of static or low wages, or expensive housing or big queues in the doctor’s surgery, or the lack of growth in the economy, well stop worrying about where your neighbours were born and start looking at our government, who makes the policies which help to address every single one of these things.   You will not be any better off as if by magic on Brexit day – whatever the kind of Brexit foisted on you.  All you will have achieved is the creation of  upset and hostility towards a group of people who have just lived their lives, just like you.  Going to work, paying their taxes, looking after their children, loving their neighbours, running their businesses, looking after old people, looking after sick people, supporting the environment, offsetting the impact of our ageing population on services.     

So now we have this “FOM has damaged us” nonsense debunked by the Governments own findings, can we have a proper conversation about our EU membership please and the genuine benefits of being EU members?  Can HM Opposition finally stop upholding these immigration myths at every twist and turn?  Can we now properly assess the real and full consequences of the outcome of government’s Brexit policy on ALL OUR LIVES PLEASE.

Time for a #peoplesvote with an option to remain.

@redalphababe

	IMPACT	REPORT COMMENT
Employment	Little or none	“we found that migrants have no or little impact on the overall employment and unemployment outcomes of the UK born workforce”
Wages	Little or none	“migration is not a major determinate of the wages of UK born workers. We found some evidence suggesting that lower-skilled workers face a negative impact while higher-skilled workers benefit, however the magnitude of the impacts are generally small.”
Self-Employment	No Meaningful evidence	“We do not conclude what, if any, impact immigration has had on the economic prospects of the self-employed but do present some descriptive statistics taken from Self-Assessment and National Insurance Number registration datasets. These show that self-employed EEA nationals have lower declared profits than UK nationals on average, likely reflecting differences in the type and duration of work undertaken”
Productivity	Positive Probably	“the studies we commissioned point towards immigration having a positive impact on productivity, but the results are subject to significant uncertainty.”
Innovation	Positive	“high-skilled immigrants make a positive contribution to the levels of innovation in the receiving country”.  Innovation is hugely important to an economy like our because this is what drives new industries, technologies and skilled jobs.
Training	Positive	“no evidence that migration has had a negative impact on the training of the  UK-born workforce. Moreover, there is some evidence to suggest that skilled migrants have a positive impact on the quantity of training available to the UK-born workforce. Any potential impact on the quality of training provided is unknown”
Services Prices	Downward pressure	“We found some evidence that migration, particularly from New Member States (NMS) and non-EEA, has reduced prices of personal services”
House Prices	Upward Pressure	“Our analysis suggests that migration has increased house prices. The impacts of migration on house prices cannot, however, be seen in isolation from other government policies. The evidence points towards a higher impact of migration in areas with more restrictive planning policies in which it is harder for the housing stock to increase in line with demand”
Contribution to public purse	Positive	“Our commissioned research found that EEA migrants pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits.”
Health and Social Care	Positive	"contribute much more to the health service and the provision of social care in financial resources and through work than they consume in services."
Education	Positive	"no evidence that migration has reduced parental choice in schools or the educational attainment of UK-born children. On average, children with English as an additional language outperform native English speakers."
Social Housing	None to slightly negative	"Given there is little building of new social housing this is inevitably at the expense of other potential tenants."
Community - crime	No impact	"migration does not impact crime "
Community - well being	Varies - no real evidence	" no evidence that migration has reduced the average level of subjective well-being in the UK."